This invention relates to an apparatus for filling prepared cigarette papers, preferably filter-cigarette paper shells, with cigarette tobacco.
With this type of apparatus it is necessary to form a skein or strand from a fine-fibered tobacco supply and insert this into the cigarette paper shell. The bulk tobacco which is initially in a continuous form has to first be dispersed and then reformed into a continuous thin strand or skein, in order to prevent the burning tobacco from crumbling when the cigarette is smoked.
Manual cigarette filling devices are known, for example U.S. Pat. No. 3,509,887, in which the tobacco supply is first corrected by hand and then the amount needed for one cigarette inserted in an elongated forming device. Subsequently, a contact pressure dish is pressed onto the preformed tobacco strand and the tobacco pressed together to form a round tobacco strand. By means of a manual lever device the preformed tobacco strand is then pressed into a cigarette paper shell which is positioned on a mounting device and held by a contact pressure device.
However, in order to form a continuous tobacco strand in these devices, it is necessary to exactly portion the amount of tobacco supplied to the device and to manually preform the tobacco fibers in a continuous fashion. When an insufficient amount of tobacco is supplied or when the tobacco fibers of the strand are not continuous, it often happens that the burning cigarette tip falls off partially or wholly during smoking.
The resulting fire hazards and annoyances created by extinction of a cigarette are well known and will therefore not be discussed. An additional disadvantage of the known devices consists in the fact that in order to manufacture cigarettes, several manual processes have to be carried out, which makes the manufacture of a larger number, for example the daily need of a smoker of optimally filled cigarettes complicated and difficult.
It is therefore the object of this invention to avoid the aforementioned disadvantages of known devices and to produce an apparatus for filling tobacco into premanufactured cigarette paper shells, which avoid manual portioning and dispersion of the tobacco to be used and which allows a continuous, firmly connected strand of tobacco to be formed and inserted into the cigarette paper shell.
This object is accomplished by providing a funnel-shaped tobacco hopper, a tobacco dispersion and dispensing device at its lower aperture with an essentially funnel-shaped tobacco supply chamber beneath the tobacco dispersion device, in the bottom of which a tobacco strand forming device of the transport spindle type is located, having a lateral outlet for the formed tobacco strand and with a cigarette shell-receiving or filling tube arranged laterally to the tobacco strand outlet.
One of the advantages of the invention is the fact that tobacco can be transferred to the hopper from a bag or a box virtually without manual pre-treatment, being automatically dispersed in the apparatus and fed to a tobacco strand forming device in which a firmly coherent tobacco strand is formed and automatically pushed into a cigarette paper shell.
The drive of the apparatus preferably consists of a single :aotor so that following the filling of the tobacco and the starting of the motor, an optimally filled cigarette, ready to be smoked, is eJected. Additional advantageous embodiments of the invention provide for the automatic sequential manufacture of large numbers of cigarettes.
Other features which are considered characteristic of the invention are set forth in the appended claims.
Although the invention is illustrated and described in relationship to specific embodiments, it is nevertheless not intended to be limited to the details shown, since various modifications and structural changes may be made therein without departing from the spirit of the invention and within the scope and range of equivalents of the claims.
The construction and operation of the invention, however, together with additional objects and advantages thereof will be best understood from the following description of specific embodiments when read in connection with the accompanying drawings.